News | Sunday, 28 December 2008

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2008: Good Reason to cry

As the year draws to a close, what remains for us to consider are the bits and pieces left in the aftermath of what was arguably one bloody political war, which will remain known more for its losers than for the only victor, GonziPN.
Not only was the Alfred Sant era swept away by the slimmest-ever majority that kept Gonzi at Castille, but a whole legion of ministers were unceremoniously given the sack in an election that saw the PN scrape through to victory with a single-seat majority.
But the one image that really captures the moment and remains in collective memory, the icon of the year that stole the show in the last days of the election campaign and which symbolised the apex of political opportunism, is that of Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, crying on 2 March at a meeting in Mosta.
Pullicino Orlando burst into tears on that fateful day, as he denied any personal connection with the application to develop a 2,000 square metre nightclub on his land in Mistra valley.
Wiping his tears in front of the party audience and TV cameras, Pullicino Orlando was the one factor that could have toppled the Nationalist administration, but ended up gaining more votes for himself as the party machinery kept pushing him to stage his tear-jerking drama. Another episode saw Pullicino Orlando confronting Sant at what was supposed to be a Broadcasting Authority press conference, to which the former presented himself as a “journalist” holding a rashly-issued temporary DOI press card.
His antics dragged the party into a veritable rut, having to face the rage of all those who looked up at the ‘Green Politician of the Year’ for his former environmental credentials. While on a constituency level the party hard-liners ended up choosing him as their first preference on two districts, Gonzi knew that the Pullicino Orlando saga also meant the loss of some 6,000 to 8,000 votes in the last week of the campaign.
As the result of the 8 March election started seeping slowly and painfully out of the counting hall in Naxxar, Pullicino Orlando represented all the elements of the PN that were gloating smugly for the wrong reasons at their party’s third consecutive victory. His image is the embodiment of the massive liabilities which Gonzi has managed to overcome to win a personal vote of confidence to keep governing.
Labour’s abymsal strategy was also of help to Gonzi, as it turned out later that the party was in total disarray in its most crucial moments. Even armed with the contract signed by Pullicino Orlando himself for the disco development, Sant could not turn the tide to his favour. He only got the contract out at his last appearance before the election, in the televised Broadcasting Authority debate; but before Sant could thrust the final sword into Pullicino Orlando’s credibility, the latter had already been elevated to the status of martyrdom. By then, few had understood that it was the document exposing the Nationalist MP as having withheld the truth even from his own party leader... even though it later transpired that Gonzi was already aware of the facts in the last days of the campaign.
The rest is history, as written in 2008: Joseph Muscat is elected Labour leader; Jason Micallef is re-elected secretary general, only having to share his bed of power with an unelected chief executive hand-picked by Muscat. Alfred Sant, who around this time last year was in hospital undergoing treatment for colon cancer, has been now relegated to the backbench, together with his inarticulate deputy Michael Falzon and the moderate but inconsequential Charles Mangion.
Education and Employment Minister Louis Galea experienced a bitter end to his parliamentary career in 2008, although he soon found the comfortable seat of the Speaker of the House to be quite befitting.
Galea became the victim of Gonzi’s promise to introduce new blood. Like him were Communications and Competitiveness Minister Censu Galea and Foreign Minister Michael Frendo, the latter absent even from Labour’s negative campaign. Likewise, Parliamentary Secretaries Tony Abela, Helen D’Amato, Edwin Vassallo and Francis Agius all failed to secure their parliamentary seat. This was, after all, only the natural result of Gonzi’s direct campaign at endorsing young and new candidates who, at the end of the day, had mixed fortunes.
John Dalli, a former minister who spent the last years as a guerrilla MP, ended up frontrunner on his traditional sixth district and with an exceptional 1,711 votes on the tenth district – Gonzi’s last-minute endorsement a year ago patched up the rift and salvaged Dalli’s constituency.
Having won the election, Gonzi could afford to keep Pullicino Orlando on the blacklist, where he remains stolidly without a hint of shame. Meanwhile, shameful truths started coming out shortly after the election, proving Sant’s belated observation about Gonzi’s ‘power of incumbency’ all too true.
Case in point is the secret deal Gonzi reached with illegal Armier squatters, just five days before announcing he was taking over responsibility for MEPA and 19 days before the election. Gonzi wrote to the squatters promising to legalise their seaside shanty-town six months after being re-elected.
MEPA was busy sanctioning illegalities in the last week of the election. With an unprecedented 430 applications, it’s caseload trebled. It turns out that in 49 cases, the DCC boards ignored the case officers’ negative recommendations, and issued permits all the same. These permits included the sanctioning of illegal stables and illegal penthouses, apartments sited in outside development zones, to a permit for a parkers’ kiosk on the Sliema strand. Only 15 cases were refused outright.
Power of incumbency was also exercised in the sudden employment of workers at government hospitals: one of several rash and imprudent decisions now being reversed one by one by Gonzi’s new cabinet, most especially by his new minister for social policy and health, John Dalli. From the pharmacy of your choice system to the housing authority’s joint equity scheme, Dalli has made it clear that everything is up for review. In the meantime, Austin Gatt emerges as the new, unofficial prime minister detonating bombs and decoys whenever his official leader needs a nice distraction.
Tears of nostalgia perhaps also for the good old Lira, to which we bid goodbye on 1 January 2008 for the euro; but other than nostalgia, there are no other reasons to cry on this amazingly smooth changeover. Beyond Gonzi’s embarrassing incident as the first citizen to try and withdraw euros from an uncooperative ATM, it proved to be our saving grace at the end of the year of the credit crunch.

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